The Cornell Daily Sun (https://cornellsun.com/tag/antonio-tsialas/)
The Cornell University Police Department is concluding the over a year-long investigation into the death of first-year Antonio Tsialas in November 2019, the department announced Monday night.
Almost a year after the death of Antonio Tsialas ’23, Cornell has indefinitely revoked the recognition of the fraternity Phi Kappa Psi, where Tsialas had spent the evening “dirty rushing.”
America has a serial killer. Most recently, it has claimed the life of one of our own students at Cornell. 1994. A young man was brutally beaten with a paddle, body-slammed and kicked in the chest repeatedly over the duration of a week. The resulting injuries were broken ribs, a lacerated kidney, a lacerated liver, his chest, neck, back, and arms so badly bruised that the counter coroner advised the family not to look at the body and brain bleeding, from which he ultimately died.
If you see something, say something. If you hear something, say something. According to The Sun’s reporting, the parents of Antonio Tsialas ’23 are suing Cornell University, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and individuals. Cornellians who know information — but are willingly hiding that information from law enforcement — are sinning against the parents, siblings and friends of Tsialas. Cease the all-too-Cornellian habit of selfishness.
The parents of deceased freshman Antonio Tsialas ’23 have filed a lawsuit against Cornell University, the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and Cornell students. The family is seeking compensation for the pain “suffered by their son … prior to his death.”
The changes attempt to reform many of fraternities’ traditional spring recruitment practices, which the Interfraternity Council president called “laissez-faire.”
The Interfraternity Council’s most recent resolution targets “dirty rushing,” or the unpermitted recruitment of first-year students. In the past, most houses did partake in dirty rushing, IFC president Cristian Gonzalez ’20 said.
President Martha Pollack told The Sun that the fraternity had apparently hosted an unregistered, “dirty rush” party on Oct. 24, meaning the event was held to recruit first-year students outside of the policies within which fraternities are allowed to do so.
Cornell’s Interfraternity Council canceled nearly all regulated fraternity events for the rest of the fall semester Friday night, citing safety concerns. The ban — which will run until Jan. 1, 2020 — cited recent events as a catalyst which had made “inherent safety hazards” apparent within the existing Greek life social system.
The Saturday before last, I woke up to a flood of Facebook posts depicting a smiling young man, Antonio Tsialas ’23, an 18-year old freshman who, according to one of the posts, had just been hired as a campus tour guide. Antonio had been missing since Thursday night, when he attended a fraternity event, and the posts implored anyone who knew his whereabouts to contact the authorities. As the hours passed and more “missing student” posts appeared in my timeline, the pit in my stomach grew and grew, and I braced myself for a tragedy. Late Saturday evening, my fears — Cornell’s fears — were confirmed with a brief mass email that told us Antonio’s body had been found in Fall Creek. I had never met Antonio, so my entire knowledge of his personality, of his humanity, came from three lonely adjectives in the mass email: thoughtful, smart, outgoing.